Friday, December 17, 2010

The Golden Snitch! Ornament Tutorial

Yup, I wore a hastily made clip-on felt Gryffindor tie to the premier of Harry Potter this year. This officially makes me a crafty dork, but it also means I had an uncontrollable urge to try making a Golden Snitch ornament for my tree. They turned out really nicely and I thought there might be one or two other crafty Potter fans out there who would like to know how to make one too.

First, draw an actual size sketch of how you want your snitch wings to look on a scrap piece of paper. Use this as a guide to shape thin craft wire into your wing shape. Close the shape by twisting the wire around the other one 3 or 4 times to make a tight coil. Snip the wire close to the coil. Make 2 (I made 4 as I am giving another Snitch away to my lovely sister).

Coat wires with glue and lay a sheet of tissue paper over top of wires. Use a clean dry brush to push down on the paper, sticking it down to the wires all around each wing. Let dry, then cut out, leaving a few millimeters of paper as a border. Apply glue to border and roll over edges of wire all around the wing. Coat wings on each side with white glue and apply light gold glitter. Let dry.

I used a mixture of brown and gold acrylic paint to paint the swirly 'snitchy' markings on the golden ornaments. I did this mostly from memory and they don't look like movie replicas, but I am okay with that. It occurred to me that if you had a fine-point brown sharpie and one of those gold paint pens, you might be able to achieve real greatness here. I chose to use glass ornaments, because I had them already, although plastic might prove easier to attach the wings to.

Use a small dab of hot glue on the wire coils to make a surface for attaching to the ball. I held each of them vertically against a piece of parchment paper. They don't stick to the parchment (or the glass balls, I tried this first), so just hold each one until the glue cools and a flat surface has formed on the bottom.

I tried a bunch of glues to get the wings to stick to the glass balls. Hot glue pops right off, white glue takes too long to set, even Super Glue didn't work. Finally I tried my trusty Fabri-tac, a glue which I only recently discovered (that I cannot live without), which is like a very strong type of rubber cement, and success! Hold each wing until the glue sets (about a minute or so), then cover glue with gold paint. Tadaa! Go hang it on your tree and get yourself a cookie, you deserve it :)

LOVE it! Potter-philes will be thrilled to have golden snitches on their trees. I like the wing tute-I can "wing" anything now. I work for Beacon Adhesives, the makers of Fabri Tac. Thanks for loving it, and citing it too. It helped me find your blog, which is fantastic-can't wait to scroll through the whole thing.

So EXCITED to make this! I'm doing an across the world secret gift swap with a bunch of Potterphiles!! Our budget is quite low so I thought I'd get rather crafty, and this is so utterly perfect there are no words. I'm going to have to fashion the wings out of something I have with me, though. I thought a coat hanger, but that would be too heavy to glue, I'd presume. Could you suggest anything else?

hello, gift ribbons very often have thin wire put in their seams to make nicer bows. you can pull these wires easily out, they are very lightweight - and you can still use the ribbon to wrap up your presents! I've already used those wires in loads of delicate craft work, for they are not only lightweight but also very plie- and durable both.

Hi Rai, I agree that coat hangers would be way to heavy and difficult to work with. Any lightweight craft wire would work, but if you can't find that there must be something else you could use. If you have access to a grocery store maybe you could find some cheap white paper twist ties (like in the bulk food area)? I bet if you peeled the paper off them, they would work, although you might have to use 2 per wing to be long enough. If you are sending these long distance, I would also recommend making them with plastic christmas balls, which are less likely to smash to pieces in the mail!

Hey there ANONYMOUS: I used lightweight craft wire, the kind that people use for wiring paper flowers to stems etc... It is pretty inexpensive and comes either on a roll like thread, or in a package of cut lengths. You can buy it a any craft store, and some beading stores have it too. Make sure that you are not buying a very heavy gauge wire, as it will be too stiff to bend, but also, don't buy a super fine filament wire, which won't be able to support its own shape.

Thanks so much for this idea! I made a normal sized one and a bigger one for my tree topper (an idea someone mentioned when they posted your tutorial). I found gold ornaments with glitter designs on them at Michaels that were all swirly so that saved me a step and I didn't have wire so I just used cardboard that I sprayed gold and cut slits to make the wings bendable, I modgepodged them into a "flying" shape and e6000'ed them to the ornament. Took a while since I put small amounts of glue at a time to each wing, trying to keep it from globbing too much. Added some glitter to the wings and bam! <3 Such a great idea and just in time for Christmas! Our star tree topper broke and the tree looks kind of sad.

I wasn't able to get fabritac to stick to glass ornaments, however, my sister had a brilliant idea. She suggested using scrapbooking squares to stick on the ornament and provide a base on which to use super glue, which seems to work great!

I made these using clear glass bulbs and using pledge with future shine and glitter to mate the bulb glittery on the inside, then using silvery Christmas trim that I had found that looked like snitching wings, put down a dab of glass glue then put a dot of hot glue over top to help hold until the glass glue set....,thanks to you for the idea, my hp loving friends have a snitch for their trees!

Followed the link here from EPBOT.com, and have now made my own flock of snitches for presents. Thanks for the tips! I'll be linking here from my blog after Christmas is over and the presents have been opened...

Thanks again for the wonderful idea!!!I just posted my own golden snitch that I've made and pointed to your tutorial :)http://estrella05azul.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/the-golden-snitch-my-harry-potter-ornament/

I LOVE it so much! It's my only ornament up for now, so I better go decorate the rest of the tree :P

I love love love these! I had clear plastic craft ornaments lying around from last year so I used those. For some strange and sad reason couldn't get my fabulous fabri-tac to work on them, so I thumb tacked them and made nice little holes to stick the wire into and hot glued over to seal it, worked like a charm. Thanks for deciding to be awesome and creative and making these, and then deciding to share them. They're amazeballs!

I totally didn't do your idea justice, but I think my cousin enjoyed it all the same. Thank you sooo much for sharing, it helped me make a extra special gift. I also have to say I loved your idea so much that I had to share your link on my blog -http://diy4mommies.blogspot.com/2011/12/diy-christmas-gifts.html

In the process of making one now for a present and I have to say...i'm SUPER excited!!!! May have to make one for myself just because!! Waiting for the wings to dry and then it's time to attach them. . .i'm a tiny bit terrified! Wish me luck!! And thanks so much for this tutorial!!!!

Hi! I hope you don't mind - I've included your project in a round up of 'gifts for the geek in your life'. I just thought this was so amazing. You can see it here (http://www.craftaspell.com/2014/01/25-gifts-for-geek-in-your-life.html) if you'd life.Thanks!Dianna

About Me

I am a scientist and crafter living on Vancouver Island. I am inspired by nature and I am in love with the ocean. I mostly sew, felt, draw and paint, but I try new things all of the time. I have recently started blogging as a way to document and share all the stuff I make in my Tiny Apartment.